50 Years Ago Today

[Gunz]

14 January 1969, the spontaneous firing of an F4B wing-mounted Zuni rocket and the subsequent secondary explosions of bombs, rockets and aircraft, killed 28 sailors aboard the USS Enterprise off Hawaii.



This was preceded just two years prior by a Zuni rocket detonation aboard the USS Forrestal that killed 134 sailors.

 

[Devildoc]

Those are great, thanks for posting. I talked with a man a few years ago who was on the Forrestal then, said the ship was snake bit from the moment it left port...if it could go wrong it did, bad vibes, a lot of sailors thought the deployment was 'cursed.'

 

[Gunz]

Ironically, aside from shooting down carrier-based aircraft, North Vietnam was incapable of damaging our aircraft carriers. These incidents caused the most destruction to our CVAs since WW2...and it was accidental self-inflicted.